The End of Mugabe?

Michael C. Moynihan | April 1, 2008

According to a report in the BBC, Zimbabwe's Hitler mustache-sportin' dictator Robert Mugabe is close to finalizing "a deal" that would bring an end to almost thirty years of foul Zanu/Zanu-PF rule. In most countries an electoral rout wouldn't require "a deal" to cede power, of course, but in Harare things are never so simple. A year after acknowledging that his country was a "laughing stock," Mugabe explained to reporters just what democracy meant to him: "If you lose an election and are rejected by the people, it is time to leave politics." Thanks for the civics lesson. Bob:

The outline of a deal has almost been reached for Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe to step down, opposition sources have told the BBC.

They say representatives of Mr Mugabe, military chiefs and the opposition have held meetings chaired by South Africa since Saturday's elections.

The sources say Mr Mugabe is to give an address to the nation but urge caution until the announcement has been made.

A ridiculous—and ill-timed—opinion piece in the New York Times recommends that the West simply "make peace with" Mugabe's election thieving, and predictably blames the spectacular failure of the government's land requisition and redistribution program on perfidious Albion, ignoring Zanu-PF's habit of bequeathing farm land to people who had never operated a farm.

Comments

TallDave|4.1.08 @ 3:49PM|#

Admit it, you're just a shill for Big Albion.

|4.1.08 @ 3:55PM|#

"Early on I had assumed that he was too busy to spare the time. Only later did it dawn on me that he might be fearful of the independent press. "

Yeah think. That editorial is comical. It is right out of The Onion. It has to be read to be beleived.

|4.1.08 @ 3:56PM|#

So does this mean Zimbabwe cricket is back?

|4.1.08 @ 3:56PM|#

Deal?

I'd say they should agree to give Mugabe a running start.

15 seconds seems about right.

lunchstealer|4.1.08 @ 4:01PM|#

I'd say they should agree to give Mugabe a running start.

Over a tall cliff.

With lions at the bottom.

|4.1.08 @ 4:01PM|#

"I'd say they should agree to give Mugabe a running start.

15 seconds seems about right."

A running start from what? I would vote for a large pack of man eating Rhodisian Ridgebacks. A couple of hungry lions would work well to, but they would kill him quicker and provide a more humane death.

BakedPenguin|4.1.08 @ 4:01PM|#

Strike Dunham - absolutely. They can go back to losing to Bangladesh, Windies, etc.

|4.1.08 @ 4:07PM|#

The farm allocations weren't quite what is described here. Farms were allocated but they were mostly not allocated as farms. They were given to Mugabe's family, to military officials, etc. But they were given as weekend homes or vacation spots not as farms.

A few farms were "allocated" as farms but again Mugabe let his socialist tendencies get involved. When a farm was actually redistributed it was done so as a "collective" farm. It would be handed over to a large number of peasant farmers who had no capital to run such large enterprises. Individual workers had to share their produce with non productive farmers. So no one worked. What they did was pillage everything worth selling and sell it off. Then they all moved back to their original farms where they could keep what they produced for themselves.

And there was never any sincere move to "redistribute farms". At least that was not the prupose of redistribution. These "white farms" had tens of thousands of black workers and their families living on them. They had private schools, private clinics, etc. They didn't rely on Harare for anything. Thus they tended to vote for the opposition. Mugabe went after farms so his thugs could get at the farm workers and intimidate them. The targets were never the farmers but the farmerworkers. The purpose wasn't land redistirbuiton but voter intimidation. But the net result was hunger and the destruction of an economy.

|4.1.08 @ 4:12PM|#

Deal?

I'd say they should agree to give Mugabe a running start.

15 seconds seems about right.

I was also hoping for a Ceauşescu finale. This asshole living in luxury with his plundered billions is not the ending I would write. Still, it's probably better than a bloodbath.

I predict Saudi Arabia residency. Anyone else have a guess?

|4.1.08 @ 4:15PM|#

"I predict Saudi Arabia residency. Anyone else have a guess?"

They took in Amin so they certainly are not above it. It will have to be somewhere off of the African continent, otherwise someone will kill him. Can't we just take Mugabe, Castro and Kim Jong Il and have a mass hanging somewhere?

ed|4.1.08 @ 4:19PM|#

Throw in Putin and you have a deal.

|4.1.08 @ 4:26PM|#

Good suggestions, all, but I was thinking of the fact that he's 84.

A running start on the families of some of his victims

who would be armed with machetes.

J sub D

I will bet that South Africa agrees to take him.

|4.1.08 @ 4:32PM|#

"A running start on the families of some of his victims

who would be armed with machetes."

No, hoes. Armed with dull rusty hoes.

|4.1.08 @ 4:56PM|#

So when to Zimbabweans get to hang him from a lamp post? Because if I lived there I'd be the first in line to do the honor.

Actually, they should probably read what they did to Mussolini and then copy it.

|4.1.08 @ 5:07PM|#

Permanent resident of the ISS, as joe suggested in another thread. Well, more or less.

EJM|4.1.08 @ 5:13PM|#

The latest BBC story is actually "'No deal' for Mugabe to step down".

Several outlets today (especially over the past few hours) have been reporting advanced talks--and then issue stories featuring official denials.

|4.1.08 @ 5:15PM|#

One more African petty tyrant has had power wrested from his grasp. Hooray.

Who thinks the next guy will support free minds and free markets?

|4.1.08 @ 5:29PM|#

Warren

I'm not optimistic about Whatsisnameinaki - the track record in Africa is pretty bleak. However, it will be pretty hard to find someone as bad as Mugabe.

John

Deal. Rusty hoes it is.

|4.1.08 @ 5:43PM|#

Zimbabwe's once booming economy is in tatters. Inflation has soared to fantastical levels, unemployment is near universal, starvation looms. And Mr. Mugabe, for all his protestations about the wicked West and for all the sycophantic comments from the yes-men who surround him, must know that he is to blame.

That's from the Times column.

What a dishonest hack.

|4.1.08 @ 5:46PM|#

The West needs to change its approach to Mr. Mugabe. Years of isolation and ineffective sanctions, with which he has fueled his propaganda campaign, have only driven Mr. Mugabe downward.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the Times, but wasn't that the whole point of the West's approach?

|4.1.08 @ 5:50PM|#

"There are no discussions, no negotiations, and President Mugabe will not be going on state television to announce anything because there's nothing to announce."

From a more recent BBC article.

|4.1.08 @ 5:53PM|#

Why would one link to the second page of a opinion piece?

|4.1.08 @ 6:19PM|#

Why would one link to the second page of a opinion piece?

I dunno, maybe he made a mistake. We're each entitled to a few so don't be such a dick.

|4.1.08 @ 6:35PM|#

Or maybe he was grossly mischaracterizing the article and didn't want the quote that directly refutes his sliming of the writer to be as prominent.

Which is pretty dickish.

Taktix®|4.1.08 @ 6:45PM|#

Where's joe to tell us how Zimbabwe is a democracy because Mugabe might step down?

(Sorry, joe. It's just hangin' out there...)

Robert|4.1.08 @ 7:13PM|#

"If you lose an election and are rejected by the people, it is time to leave politics."

Not necessarily to leave politics, just to leave a leading role -- and then maybe not permanently. There are lots of things you can do in politics without ever winning an election yourself.

Zimbabwe's once booming economy is in tatters. Inflation has soared to fantastical levels, unemployment is near universal, starvation looms. And Mr. Mugabe, for all his protestations about the wicked West and for all the sycophantic comments from the yes-men who surround him, must know that he is to blame.

That's from the Times column. What a dishonest hack.

I don't get it. Is there something else one could gather from the context that would reveal the above to be a dishonest hack at the subject?

|4.1.08 @ 8:01PM|#

If Mugabe admits defeat expect him to leave the country and I guess that he will take the millions he has plundered from foreign aid programs and set us residency in South Africa where the ANC has been his bosom buddies, covering up for his crimes and defending him.

|4.1.08 @ 8:53PM|#

Robert,

The link to the story that contains that statement - the one where the author puts the blame on Mugabe himself - reads A ridiculous-and ill-timed-opinion piece in the New York Times recommends that the West simply "make peace with" Mugabe's election thieving, and predictably blames the spectacular failure of the government's land requisition and redistribution program on perfidious Albion, ignoring Zanu-PF's habit of bequeathing farm land to people who had never operated a farm.

The link then goes to the second page of the piece, where that quote is nowhere to be found.

That's what I was referring to.

Travis|4.1.08 @ 9:16PM|#

I read in a magazine a couple weeks ago I think it was Newsweek. That the mortality rate per month is higher in Zimbabwe than in Iraq.

Abdul|4.2.08 @ 8:35AM|#

I predict Mugabe will go to France to live out his exile. And that may be worse than meeting the families of his victims armed with machetes and hoes.

I liked this from the Heidi Holland's NYT editorial: Every effort should be made internationally to set up a conversation with the dictator.

Just goes to show you that some women believe endless talking can solve any problem. Maybe Mugabe can talk his currency down from 200,000% inflation.

Mad Max|4.2.08 @ 9:57AM|#

From the NYT editorial:

"That a precariously balanced individual like Mr. Mugabe is in charge of a country and willing to destroy it to score points against an enemy is a tragedy in itself. That he has an arguably justifiable complaint against a major Western power - namely the repudiation of the land reform pledge - is doubtless an embarrassment in the West. But that Britain and others choose to shun Mr. Mugabe rather than attempt to settle these differences is quite frankly reckless."

While the author isn't blaming perfidious Albion for all that's bad in Zimbabwe, it asserts that Britain made it worse by refusing to throw money at the Zimbabwe in the name of land reform, after [as the author seems to admit] Mugabe mismanaged the first batch of money.

Or, in other words, perfidious Albion is to blame for treating a paranoid dictator like a paranoid dictator.

Mad Max|4.2.08 @ 10:02AM|#

Mugabe submitted a constitutional amendment to the voters a few years ago, abolishing the requirement that white people get compensation for the taking of their land. The amendment would say that no compensation need be given unless the United Kingdom was willing to pay for it.

The voters *rejected* Mugabe's proposed amendment. That is to say, they stood by the previous rule of no-confiscation-without-compensation. Mugabe simply ignored the voters and grabbed the land anyway.

Now the NYT op-ed writer wants us to do what the voters of Zimbabwe *didn't* do - pass the buck to Britain.